Tag Archives: Tools

A-Z of Digital – A is for Automation

26 Monday Jun 2017

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API

Following on from my blog post outlining an A-Z of Digital, here is “A is for Automation”

Automation is nothing new and the instinct to automate things has been around for a long time. There are lots of automated things in our lives that we now take for granted that at one time were not. The level of automation today does however seem to have a different set of goals. By this I mean the ability to fully automate something so no manual intervention is needed and the automation can think for itself. The future of systems auto detecting and joining themselves together presenting a tick list of the things that can be automated automatically is not that far away.

A house heating system is a good example of this. Starting with a very manual based system of stoking up the boiler to gas powered central heating controlled to come on by means of a thermostat or mechanical clock interface, to now where you can simply control your heating from a mobile device. Systems can learn your habits and settings to ensure the environment you live in stays at the right temperature for your needs.

Automation is available in many forms and tools that we can either purchase a solution to add, complement or replace an existing one, or create our own. As the world moves towards the “World as Code”- the manual tasks of today should be the automated tasks of tomorrow, achieved using tools that interface with systems using API’s and commands that join them together to carry out tasks, with the ability to control everything by means of code. We have more control over what we can automate, starting with the repetitive tasks before moving onto more complex tasks.

The LEF’s Lewis Richards has discusses “How Will Automation Change Us and Businesses?” in one of his latest videos and using tools such as IFTTT or Zapier to start your journey to automation. IFTTT has over 430 service API’s that you can link into.

Using these tools you can create simple automation linking services together with API’s and a user interface to set certain conditions, such as “Automating leaving a geolocation area“. API’s are a growing area within services and applications with more being made available to allow better integration and automation. Normally 3rd party applications take advantage of these API’s to provide additional services on top and compliment existing platforms. With the growth of the “Citizen Developer”, a user who can create simple code to perform functions, these API’s are now being used in a wider context to automate things. Anyone can become a Citizen Developer and start to code and interact, join systems together.

You have probably been doing this already with tools such as Excel, Access and Word. If you want to start discovering automation start with tools such as:

 

How much trust should we give apps with device permissions

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Digital, Security, Tools

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spyware-2319403_640Have you every gone to the app store and just installed something on there because it looks good and something you want to look at, or purchased a product and then installed the app without thinking or checking it out first? Lots of people do, but do they really know what is going on under the covers?

How often do you install an application onto your personal device without checking the permissions that it requires or know what the app has access to and what its doing?

These are relevant questions that we should be asking ourselves as we become more connected and joined together sharing our personal data. This is a subject that I have written about before on app permissions and is still relevant today.

I have recently been asked to look at a fitness braclet that someone had who wanted to install the app. What struck me about this app that basically allows you to control a basic fitness tracker was the permissions to allow access to the Camera and Microphone, when there is clearly no reason within the product or app to have them. Is this a lazy programmer who hasnt set the right permissions on the app or is there something else going on.

Invite

One of the great things I like about mobile devices now is the ability to actually turn these off myself.

So do I want my coffee app to know where I am all the time, maybe not, but I do know that it may need access to the storage to download the latest offers and store those discount vouchers.

Of course stopping a permission may cause application issues, however the important thing is that a user can say no.

So when was the last time you checked the apps installed on your device and their permissions?

Do It Yourself – AI Assistants

26 Friday May 2017

Posted by in IoT, Programming, Raspberry Pi, Tools

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CyborgThe options available to consume voice activated assistants are increasing with recent releases within the market.

The availability of pre-built off the shelf Assistants is growing and so is the ability to build your own using the open sourced versions.

Google recently gave away AIY (Do It Yourself Artificial Intelligence) a maker kit, with Voice Hat and components to work with a Raspberry PI on the front of the Raspberry PI Magazine issue 57 – (MagPI) inline with the release of the https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/

The demand for this kit was very high and as a result unfortunately there are none left and not much information at the moment of the kit becoming available for sale. There is a waiting list available and it will probably be released depending upon demand.

This aside whilst we await the release of the sale kit for AIY, you can still take advantage of the AIY capabilities and a Raspberry Pi 3 in a similar way to installing Amazon Alexa onto the PI.

  • Google AIY Build
  • Raspberry Pi 3
  • Generic Aux Speaker
  • USB Microphone

You could go one better by running both Alexa and Google AIY on the same Raspberry PI, using a build from xtools called AssistantPi.

AssistantPi is basically a tweak of AlexaPi. It includes the Google Assistant SDK and uses AlexaPi’s hotword recognition to activate either Assistant or Alexa. The installer provides an easy way to get everything set up in just under an hour.

https://www.hackster.io/xtools/assistantpi-74b772

A great project to try out and learn from, giving you the power of both Alexa and Google.

Attending GitHub Satellite 2017

23 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Development, Open Source, Programming, Raspberry Pi, STEM, Tools

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Yesterday I attended GitHub Satellite 2017 in LondonGithub

https://github.com/blog/2313-join-us-for-github-satellite-2017-may-22-23-in-london-uk

The event was well attended and there was a good buzz around the conference. GitHub Marketplace was launched at the conference and some of the initial vendors in the Marketplace demonstrated how their applications can be used in the lifecycle of coding. You could watch demos and chat to the companies at their vendor stalls to gain further information.

Below are my notes from the conference and Key Note opening speeches

Opening

The opening lead by Chris Wanstrath (Co-Founder & CEO, GitHub) and Kyle Daigle (Senior Engineering Manager, GitHub)

  • GitHub has 21 Million Developers
  • 59 Million Projects using the platform.
  • Expanding into gaming with Githib for Unity
  • Extentions for Visual Studio

ATOM

  • Help guide the approach with ATOM
  • 2.1 million active users of ATOM

Electron

  • GitHub desktop GUI new version based on electron. Open Source to allow it to be developed by community.
  • Electron platform for building desktop apps. Runs cross platforms.
  • Companies using electron to build internal apps.
  • Seeing big fortune 500 companies using electron for web, mobile and desktop apps.

GitHub as a platorm

  • Now 9 years old.
  • Today more API traffic than UI traffic
  • 5+ million users use integration
  • OAuth growing doubling each year
  • API ‘s have not been developed and remained static….. 9 years old.

World moving to a new world of API’s. Moving on from SOAP to REST to what’s next.What is the future of API’s:

GraphQL

  • Build queries on data you need.
    • Powering new features of GitHub
    • Suggested reviewers
    • Projects
    • Topics
  • 125 million GraphSQL internal queries a day.
  • GraphQL is open source.

GitHub Apps

  • Fine grain permissions
  • Choose how you want to give access to repositories
  • Using bots in Integrations

GitHub Marketplace (Launching today)

  • Find tools that meet your workflows best.
  • Pricing plans in marketplace
  • Marketplace has option to join and apply to be part of Marketplace.

Build and Grow Sessions

There were a number of sessions held in either the Build or Grow track which attendees could join.

I went to sessions in both tracks including the session on Building Interconnected Workflows which featured companies in the newly launched Market Place. Heard from these companies on how their products could be used in conjunction for a full code project lifecycle, which was interesting and good to hear.

Vitor Monteiro, GitHub
Andrew Homeyer, Waffle.io
Danielle Tomlinson, CircleCI
Jaime Jorge, Codacy
Cory Virok, Rollbar

There was a good session on Women in IT from Amy Dickens from the University of Nottingham which also covered topics of diversity and how workplaces and attitudes can change to make a difference.

Closing Session

The closing session was run by Marc Scott from the Raspberry PI Foundation who gave an overview of the Foundation, what it does and how the community can help review projects and sumbit projects for others to practice, learn from and enjoy. Also helping by joining local coding groups to pass on knowledge.

Sessions were streamed and Im hoping that replays are availble to catch up with the sessions I couldnt get to.

Unfortunately I could not get to todays workshop sessions but again hoping for streams of these following the event.

Automating leaving a geolocation area

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Automation, Productivity, Tools

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mapFollowing on from my blog about Accepting automation and safeguards, in this post I will demonstrate how easy it is to set up a recipe from IFTTT (If This Then That) to use the location service to send a text to someone when I have left a Geolocation zone.

There are other automation tools you can use on your mobile such as Tasker, Zapier and Automate, however for this example I have chose IFTTT.

The actual configuration of this task is very easy using either the web or mobile tool.

Using the tool in this example, I chose the recipe ingredients that related to my mobile. In this case an Android phone.

The interface takes you through an the process by clicking the relevant icons and entering some simple information. I have flow charted the process below:

IFTTT

You can install the application on your mobile and sign in so that it knows about the tool. Its also important that when using location recipes that you also turn on the Location/GPS function on your device.

This set up uses Android, IFTTT, Google maps and the GPS function of the mobile. These should be kept up to date with any updates that come out on a regular basis.

The text message itself can contain a number of parameters “I exited an area {{OccurredAt}} via Android {{LocationMapUrl}}”  which did put some context into the text message.

{{OccurredAt}} provided a date and time

{{LocationMapUrl}} provided a location in google maps

You can remove these from the message if they are not needed.

There are lots of sample recipes and ones created by others that you can reuse, or the site has the ability to create your own.

(originally posted at https://maxhemingway.com/2016/02/19/ifttt-sms-when-exiting-a-location-recipe/)

 

Accepting automation – Do we need safeguards?

09 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Automation, Open Source, Productivity, Programming, Security, Tools

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CogsThere are many and apps available to help us automate basic tasks on our mobiles and computing devices. When choosing these tools, we often read reviews and then download the app, run and set up, then let it run its tasks accepting that it will carry out our requirements. But what happens when there is an issue.

I have a simple IFTTT (If This Then That) recipe running on my mobile phone that sends a test message when I leave an area set up in google maps using Geolocation and GPS to look at my location. A standard recipe for IFTTT.

Today whilst sitting at my desk the recipe triggered saying I had left the area, however I am sat in the middle of my geolocation fence which extends for about 1 mile around to allow some local area travel. The net result is the person who got the message thought I was on my way home, when in fact I was still at work.

Solution to my problem:

The issue with this recipe was caused by the Android operating system and the phone type causing some wonkiness with the location. I fixed this by ensuring all the packages are up to date, rebooting and using another app called GPS Status to assist with ensuring my GPS is working correctly and has the right the location. Also ensuring that the GPS is set to high dependency. The downside may be the drain on the battery with the extra services – I will monitor this going forward.

The main thing this points out is how we accept and then use an app/tool and expect it to work, but not consider the what ifs, such as what if the app triggers incorrectly. Should I have set any safeguards in the recipe or built a counter app.

No harm done in this case as it triggered a text message, but what if this had done something different such as put the heating on, turned on a kettle, opened the garage door, turned something else off? This could be reversed using another recipe to turn things off if I’m within the geolocation fence.

So, what can you do to ensure that your apps/tools and related apps/tools are reliable:

Research – review and research your app. Have there been any issues with running something similar.

Secure – Think about the security of the app and what you can do to protect yourself.

Update, Update, Update – keep the OS, Apps and related apps up to date. In this instance, Android, IFTTT, Google Maps.

Plan – for the what ifs. Allow a reverse control if needed such as turn off the kettle, close the garage, turn on the alarm.

Experiment – Dont be afraid to experiment to get the automation you require.

Safeguards – Think about any Safeguards you may need to build in such as a counter app.

Digital Tools- Voice Activated Assistants

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in Digital, Innovation, Productivity, Tools

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blogger-336371_640Does the Voice Activated Assistant have a place in the business?   Yes it does. There are lots of voice activated assistants available to help us with our daily tasks. Some are built into mobile devices and some are purchased as specific items. The key is that they all respond to commands and can interact with other devices in our lives.

These devices are already within most business today, but may not being used to their full potential.

“<Insert Name of Assistant> turn on the lights” – providing that the assistant has been linked to the lighting system it will turn on the lights as requested.

Voice programs and activation have been around for along time, but have only recently become more mainstream with the advancements in the speech algorithms and technology to recognise the various dimensions and variants of the human voice. Also the ability to respond in a human voice. Brings back memories of playing around with Dr Spaitso (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Sbaitso) or watching the film War Games and wanting a talking computer “Would you like to play a game….”.

The biggest market at the moment is the consumer market with devices such as the Amazon Echo being used to connect a myriad of devices and services to build a connected home. There are a number of other assistants out there on devices that can do the same, such as Siri, Cortana, AVIC, and Google Now on the market. There are lots of others available as well.

There are also lots of projects and wishes to have an AI Assistant similar to J.A.R.V.I.S from Marvel’s Iron Man. Such a project is being carried out by Mark Zuckerberg. https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-jarvis/10154361492931634/

For some having devices around that are constantly listening can be a security issue, however in the main having a voice activated assistants are becoming more common place in every day lives.

“Google says 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches” http://searchengineland.com/google-reveals-20-percent-queries-voice-queries-249917. This figure will be higher including all the assistants.

This trend is already seeing businesses building web based services to be voice friendly and allow access to data by looking at the type of natural questions someone may ask. Typically a voice search will take longer than a typed search as there is an additional processing step around the voice translation to search, however this is speeding up with the advancements in the programming and algorithms used.

Another example of a business application for voice assistants is where an operator is working with their hands and needs to get a part delivered or get answers to a question about the task they are doing.

In an office the assistant could be used to raise a ticket on the help desk AI, which in turn will try to solve the issue before raising a ticket for a human operator to assist.

Voice has been around for a long time and the future will see it mature to be a more personalised assistant with the ability to interact by recognising the user and have the ability to be called different names, removing the current standard activation names. Linking voice, business systems, data science, AI and machine learning will see a future of being able to ask natural language voice questions to the device about the business/data and obtain a natural language response from the system.

 

 

 

Chronodex 2017 (Jun-Jun)

23 Friday Dec 2016

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ChronodexThe first half of the 2017 Chronodex has been released by Patrick Ng.

Available at:  https://app.box.com/s/rcthk406yjp0obd3263nwsphk53h4nyk

There is still a place for a manual diary and journalling using a pen rather than a blog post as discussed here No Batteries Required: My Personal Journal. I am now on my 19th Journal and still going strong.

Pen Based Productivity Tools – The Chronodex 2016 part 2

08 Friday Jul 2016

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ChronodexThe second half of the year has been released for the Chronodex by Patrick Ng.

Available at:  https://app.box.com/s/ln730mbtqhd7kkkp8aj8osknzv3pw7zd

There is still a place for journalling using a pen rather than a blog post as discussed here No Batteries Required: My Personal Journal. I am now on my 17th Journal and still going strong.

8 Free “For Dummies” books you should read in 2016

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Architecture, Cloud, Development, DevOps/OpsDev, Enterprise Architecture, Innovation, Programming, Security

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There has been a lot of the free smaller versions of the “For Dummies” books published recently. These are normally sponsored by a company to help promote a way of thinking/product/etc, however they do contain useful overviews and information on the subject that they are presenting on.

Here are my top 8 of these which should be on your reading list for the start of 2016. All are downloadable in PDF format*.

Agile for Dummies

API for Dummies

DevOps for Dummies

Micro-segmentation for Dummies

Next Generation Endpoint Security for Dummies

Software Defined Data Centres for Dummies

Software Defined Networking for Dummies

Software Defined Storage for Dummies

*You may need to sign up to receive some of these books.